The present invention relates to a catalyst capable of operating in a continuous manner without requiring a cyclical removal of separated soot particles (particulates), the catalyst being used for the oxidative purification of the exhaust gases of diesel engines. High conversion performance for hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide in low operating temperature ranges is obtained by the present invention. The catalysts of the invention feature vanadium compounds and platinum group metals deposited onto finely divided aluminum oxide, titanium oxide, silicon oxide, zeolite, as well as their mixtures, as activity-enhancing support materials. The present invention also relates to the method of purifying diesel exhaust gases.
Filters based on fine-pore ceramic monoliths with alternatingly plugged channels (so-called wall flow filters), ceramic foams, wire mesh packets, ceramic tubes, ceramic fiber wound filters, and the like have already been suggested for the purification of diesel exhaust gases containing sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide. The diesel soot particles can be removed from the exhaust-gas current with the aid of these filtration devices. However, the particles filtered therefrom can only be removed by combustion in a few operational states during which the exhaust-gas temperature is sufficiently high enough. The known diesel soot filters have to be regenerated in this manner.
However, if such a specified driving state, during which the particulates can be burned off, does not occur for a rather long driving period, due to, for example, a moderate mode of driving, the exhaust-gas backpressure of the filter rises as a result of the constant accumulation of particulates and the accompanying consumption of fuel. As a result, the engine finally comes to a standstill. Thus, these known filter systems do not have a sufficient operational reliability for general use in solving the problem of reducing diesel particulate emissions. Therefore, it has been frequently suggested that burner systems be used in diesel systems for regeneration or that an external regeneration be performed by means of heating the filters with electric current, for example, when the vehicle is at a standstill. However, there are problems with such systems. In the first system, a burner system can be housed with ease only in the case of large emission sources, such as trucks; and for the other system, an external regeneration system for heating the filter is complicated.
It is already known that various types of filter systems, including the above-described wall flow filter, may be coated with catalytic substances which lower the ignition temperature. Such catalytic substances include vanadium pentoxide, vanadates, e.g. AgVO.sub.3 and perrhenates. These active substances can be doped with a finely divided support material and, in addition, a noble metal such as platinum can also be added by impregnation (U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,515,758; 4,477,417; 4,588,707; 4,455,393; 4,828,807 and 4,900,517).
It has been observed, however, that the conversion performance for hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide, especially in the case of the low exhaust-gas temperatures specific to diesel engines, is not satisfactory in the case of the wall flow filters primarily used at the present, even if they are coated with catalysts of the above-mentioned type. Moreover, the use of wall flow filters coated with catalytic materials and carrier materials leads to the disadvantage of a high exhaust-gas backpressure, which adversely affects the engine performance, especially when highly charged with soot particles. Efforts to compensate this disadvantage by means of a greater amount of catalyst were not successful. Moreover, an enlargement of the geometric dimensions of catalysts, which could result in a reduction of the exhaust-gas backpressure, is not feasible because of the limited space availability in most vehicles.
The invention therefore has one objective of developing a system with which the disadvantages pointed out can be overcome.